Customers of cosmetic products are often interested in selecting an optimum color shade for their cosmetics. As a result, cosmetic manufacturers often produce cosmetic products in a large variety of colors with the expectation of meeting a majority of customers needs. While manufacturers attempt to manufacture a large variety of colors, there are limits to the number of choices available. Manufacturers are cognizant of limited storage space and the desire to avoid waste which may be associated with colors which are found to be less popular. Selection of optimum color may also be hindered by stock availability. More popular color selections may be out of stock and today's "on-demand" consumers will often be unwilling to wait for their color choice to become available before switching to another brand. As a result, customized color selection has been developed in order to address a greater number of consumer's needs.
Customers may desire a particular color shade for any number of reasons. They may want to match a particular foundation, powder, or blush to their unique skin tone, or a particular lipstick to a garment or nail polish color. Alternatively, customers may want to match their foundation, lipstick, or other cosmetic product to their skin tone with a slightly darker or lighter, but complimentary, shade, or may be interested in matching their cosmetic product to a particular hair color or other color.
Several cosmetic manufacturers have been providing customers with flexibility in color choice for such articles as foundation and powders. For instance, Clinique and Clarion have installed computers at sales counters for the customer. Information concerning such factors as color shade, skin type, and other properties are input into the computer, which then determines the company's most closely matching product.
Other companies have provided custom blended foundations and powders. One company, Prescriptives, manually evaluates a subject's skin color and then the sales person attempts to adjust existing finished foundations and powders to match the evaluated subject's skin color. This method may be time consuming and may require extensive training of sales personnel.
One company, Trish McEvoy, provides customized lip coloring to the customer at the point of sale. In the Trish McEvoy custom pallette system, when a customer is unable to find an optimum color from the commercially available lipstick products, but desires something similar to a commercially available color, the customer selects the two most closely colored commercially available lipstick products. Then a portion of the lipstick mass from each color is cut off and manually placed into a square pallette. This pallette is then heated. During heating, the sales person mixes the material in the pallette by manually stirring it. Upon hardening in the pallette, the customer utilizes a brush to transfer the lipstick material from the pallette to the lips.
Several patents teach an apparatus or method for blending customized cosmetic products at the point of sale. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 4,871,262 to Krauss et al. describes an automatic cosmetic dispensing system and method for blending selected cosmetic additives into a cosmetic cream base. The cosmetic additives are pumped from storage bottles into ajar containing the cream base. The mixture is stirred by a mixing rod, removed from the dispensing unit, sealed, and provided to the customer.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,622,692 to Rigg et al., the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety, describes a method and apparatus for providing a customized skin foundation product. A skin analyzer is utilized for reading skin properties. A programmable device receives the reading from the skin analyzer and correlates an optimal formula from a preprogrammed set of formulas, and a formulation machine prepares the foundation product from various cosmetic chemical compositions. The formulation machine receives instructions from the programmable device in identifying the optimal formula. The optimal formula may be altered by customer input and manual alteration. U.S. Pat. No. 5,785,960 to Rigg et al. describes a method and apparatus similar to that described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,622,692 and further describes the use of a telemodem to utilize the method and apparatus at a remote location from a central location where the product is prepared.
Previous customization systems, such as those utilized for foundations, suffer from numerous problems. These systems frequently require a precise measurement of very small quantities of materials in order to match the formula generated by the computer algorithm. They utilize a large static mass of materials, which must be kept at the place of preparation. They require continuous dispensing, usually via pumps or nozzles, from the same masses of material in the course of preparation of multiple different foundations. The repeated dispensing results in an increased potential for contamination of the starting materials, and therefore, can result in a substantial waste of materials. The precision required in measuring out the particular raw materials also results in a poorer likelihood of accurate reproducibility of the same color without the use of highly trained personnel.
The present invention avoids these problems and provides a technique for creating color customized cosmetic mass products, such as lipstick and stick foundations. The starting materials are individual small units, dispensed only once, resulting in very little waste. Unlike the prior systems which relied on combinations of already available lipsticks, it is not even necessary to keep a lipstick inventory on hand. As a result, there will ultimately be fewer returns, and less wasted components, i.e., lipstick cases and packaging, for shades that become unpopular. The present invention also readily accommodates a change in customer shade preferences. Measurement is simple but very precise, resulting in reproducible colors. Also, the individual starting components are small, and relatively easily stored behind the counter. These and other benefits will be readily evident from the following discussion.
There is, therefore, a need for an improved lipstick customization process which can be readily utilized at the cosmetic counter, or similar point of sale location, to provide customized lipsticks. Other types of cosmetic mass products, such as cheek color cosmetics, stick foundations, or other similar color cosmetics, would also be producible with an improved customization technique.